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Leighton Woodhouse has a far more sophisticated understanding of the origins of the Ukraine War than Dr. Zubrin does. He says,

“The debate over Ukraine is divided, broadly speaking, into two narratives. The first, mainstream story is that Russia is an imperialist nation that invaded Ukraine for no better reasons than greed for territory, lust for geopolitical power, and hunger for the restoration of the Russian Empire and the personal glory of Vladimir Putin. In this analysis, the West played no role in provoking Russian aggression — or if it did, Russia’s invasion of the country demonstrates that those provocations were entirely justified.

The second, dissenting narrative is that the United States and the West goaded Putin into war by gratuitously expanding NATO eastward and by stoking political unrest in Putin’s “near abroad” in pursuit of a regime change agenda in Moscow. In this view, the Euromaidan revolution, and the Orange Revolution before that, were at least in part fomented by the United States and its European allies to deny Russia its buffer zone in Ukraine and to instigate pro-western protests inside Russia’s borders, on the model of the Arab Spring.

Elements of both are true. But neither paints a complete picture of the causes of the war.

Russia is alone in its culpability for starting the conflict. But, as the dissenting narrative contends, the United States shares responsibility for creating the conditions that made the invasion not just possible, but probable. With a full understanding of what it was doing, the US took every opportunity to raise Putin’s hackles by pushing Ukraine toward the West, actively encouraging pro-western protest movements in Ukraine, and paving the way for Ukrainian admission into NATO.

Then, up to the eleventh hour, the United States and the West rejected every opportunity to push for peace. In 2021, just two months before launching his full-scale invasion, Putin proposed terms to NATO to resolve the imminent conflict, Aaron Maté reported. They included pulling back the alliance’s military presence in Russia’s neighboring states and ensuring Ukrainian neutrality. NATO rejected it, so, according to NATO’s top civilian official, Putin went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders.”

The reality is that Putin and Biden are co-conspirators in presenting the world with the most dangerous conflict of the 21st century. That Putin is more complicit than Biden does nothing to absolve Biden of responsibility for this mess.

Of course, Biden is not alone in inspiring the calamity that has befallen the world. He’s merely an avatar for an angry, befuddled and intellectually bankrupt globalist world view that believes that collective action and warmongering make the planet a more peaceful and prosperous place. That the globalists are wrong about this is self-evident. After all, look at the state of Ukraine, the United States, Europe and Russia. It’s a mess as far as the eye can see.

To make matters worse, it looks like Ukraine might be defeated. We’re less than two years into the conflagration and maybe Ukraine can still pull a rabbit out of a hat, but as of this moment, it’s not looking good. The U.S. Congress might still provide additional aid to Ukraine but whether it will is still very much in doubt. Even if it does, as Americans turn against assistance to Ukraine the days of unlimited support are clearly coming to an end. Slovakia has joined Hungary as a NATO country opposed to the American position and Zelensky has managed to infuriate Poland, the nation that has done so much for his war effort.

While majorities in most NATO nations still support assistance to Ukraine, the vitality of those majorities seems to be ebbing. Worst of all, Ukraine is clearly having serious difficulty in recruiting the soldiers that it needs to prosecute the war and, of course, it’s offensive is mostly a costly failure. If it is already not too late for Ukraine, time is running out.

If Ukraine wins it will largely be a Pyrrhic victory for a nation that lies in ruins. If Ukraine loses, it will be a disaster not only for Ukraine but also for the United States and its NATO partners (I use the term “partners” loosely; many of those partners are little more than hangers-on or worse). After the calamities in Iraq and Afghanistan, a Russian defeat of Ukraine might just finish off the power of the western alliance for good.

If that sad spectacle comes to pass, it’s obvious what Dr. Zubrin and his fellow globalists will do; they will blame everyone but themselves. They will claim that NATO didn’t send the right weapons and that the weapons that were sent didn’t arrive fast enough. They will claim that the war-fighting strategies recommended to the Ukrainians weren’t appropriate or that the West was too parsimonious in the assistance it did provide. In short, Dr. Zubrin and his globalist friends will flail around seeking scapegoats instead of doing what they should be doing; looking into a mirror.

The real blame for a Ukrainian defeat will lay in the laps of the globalist cadre who suffer from the anti-Midas touch. Everything they touch turns into you know what.

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Oct 6, 2023Liked by Claire Berlinski

You can count me in as someone who believes that we need to support Ukraine up to and including boots on the ground, if it came to that, though hopefully it doesn't.

However, this article doesn't convince me of it. It'd be better for Mr. Zubrin to directly address the arguments of those who are opposed to aiding Ukraine rather than calling them deserters and colluders.

But such is the world of political discourse these days: "You are wrong, not because you are wrong, but because you bad and stupid."

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Oct 6, 2023Liked by Claire Berlinski

Thankyou. You've nailed it.

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Oct 5, 2023·edited Oct 5, 2023

Looks like you were too young for VN, and unless you voluntarily enlisted —unlikely for Ph.D.s— I'd imagine you'd have had zero first-hand military experience...much less as a ground combatant. Also Wiki doesn't show whether you've fathered children. "War is good for business: invest your sons"... but it sure has been good for Martin-Marietta. So pretty rich for somebody who's likely not been a Teddy Rooseveltian "man in the arena" for you to be so energetically waving the bloody shirt, vis-a-vis the Ukraine debacle (maybe 400K dead so far); and hardly inconceivable that nukes would forever remain un-deployed as the violence ratchets upwards.

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Zubrin quotes Kennedy,

“We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of “peace on earth, good will toward men.”

Joe Biden and his ignorant unipower supporters, the deluded neoconservatives and the hopelessly confused liberal internationalists, long ago forgot how to exercise American strength with wisdom and restraint.

It wasn’t wisdom and restraint that bungled the American interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. The American boys who came home in body bags or sans arms, legs or both were the victims not of wisdom but of stupidity and incompetence. Stupidity and incompetence have been the twin emblems of American foreign and military policy for decades.

It was not wisdom or restraint when the Biden Administration did everything it could to instigate the Russian invasion. Whether Putin would have invaded anyway is something we will never know but what we do know is that Biden was so anxious to prove to the world that “America was back” once Trump was out of office that he hoped Putin would invade; Biden’s wish was granted.

After the invasion Macron, Erdogan and Naftali Bennett all tried to intercede and negotiate a resolution. Biden, steeped in a passionate nostalgia for the Cold War, was having none of it. Apparently Dr. Zubrin shares Biden’s nostalgia for the Cold War.

Zubrin cites American leadership in confronting the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact nations. It’s true, thank goodness the United States and NATO won the Cold War. American leadership was made possible by the fact that the United States was stronger, more unified and more entrepreneurial than any nation in the world. It no longer is, and the fault for the diminution in American strength lies primarily with globalists like Dr. Zubrin.

Of the $25 trillion that the United States has spent on defense since 1945, a not inconsiderable percentage of those funds was squandered on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Sadly it was not just money that was squandered. More importantly, American vitality and power were needlessly squandered as well.

That’s why we can’t produce enough armaments to send to Ukraine while still protecting ourselves and our Asian allies. It’s also why the world is slowly but surely de-dollarizing. It’s a major factor causing the ever increasing federal deficit which leads to an ever increasing federal debt.

Dr. Zubrin is an expert in energy policy. Has he noticed that the American strategic petroleum reserve has never been lower? It was tapped by Biden to keep gasoline prices down during the mid-term elections. Despite this gimmickry, gas prices are approaching all-time highs (in nominal terms). Surely Dr. Zubrin understands that the war in Ukraine is a major factor in higher energy prices and the evisceration of America’s strategic reserves.

Dr. Zubrin does not know as much about the Kennedy Assassination as he thinks he does. He forgot to mention as potential culprits the CIA and the Mafia. There’s as much evidence for their complicity as there is of the culprits Dr. Zubrin mentions.

The American gambit in Ukraine is looking increasingly perilous. Ukraine had better find a way to pull a rabbit out of a hate and emerge victorious or the American defeat in Ukraine will complete the trifecta of defeats with Iraq and Afghanistan being the other two calamities.

America never wins anymore. The uniparty is to blame.

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Oct 5, 2023Liked by Claire Berlinski

¨So President John F. Kennedy would have said at the Dallas Trade Mart on November 22, 1963, had he not been shot down earlier that day by Lee Harvey Oswald, an ex-Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union.¨

Yes. My grandmother was a volunteer at the luncheon at the Trade Mart, there to see her guy. Unfortunately the President never arrived.

¨This kookiness is nearly matched by that offered by putative Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy (Vivek would only abandon the defense of the Eastern Hemisphere) and rivaled by actual candidates Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. ¨

They are all following Trump´s and Jabba the Yuck´s (one Steve Bannon) lead - although given Bannon´s association with a Chinese billionaire (now under arrest) I expect that Bannon is actually a pony boy for the Chinese.

¨Let us be clear: Cutting off aid to Ukraine is collusion with Russia. Furthermore, it is collusion with Beijing. Russia and China are allies.¨

Precisely. They have been working on that alliance for 17 year years. We don´t get to pick and choose between the two. If we´re in a struggle with one, we´re in a struggle with the other.

¨If Russia conquers Ukraine, it will greatly enhance its material and technological power, delete Ukraine’s million-man army from the West’s order of battle, advance its forces to the borders of NATO members Poland and Romania, ¨

Maybe. The first part of the battle has been won - the Russian army is mostly raw meat at this point and it would take them a good long while to regroup, even if Ukraine collapsed tomorrow. The issues here are locking down Eastern Europe and sustaining Ukraine.

¨If we do, we will divert the forces and funds needed to contain China in Asia.¨

We´re in decent position. We can start doing this now. Regardless of that, our friends in the Loon Caucus want a war with Mexico (´any war but a real war´) or are least committed to pretending to want a war with Mexico (running away from a fight with the Russians over not very much looks cowardly). So, obviously, they´re going to abandon East Asia to the Chinese, especially if bribes are in the offing.

¨In this hour, the US needs Reagan Republicans, not Putin Republicans.¨

The remnants of Reaganism befuddled itself over China, dithering between China being the worst thing ever and really liking Chinese money, got lost in the mountains of Afghanistan and bled itself out in the sands of Iraq. Reagan Republicanism as an actual effective political tendency in the Republican party is DOA.

¨President Biden has been weak and indecisive in his support of Ukraine.¨

Meh. The secret to Biden is that he is a State guy, and except on the very biggest decisions, accepts the advice of the military. The Pentagon in turn has to pay heed to Republicans (and Democrats) in Congress, plus there´s the money. It takes time to turn politicians (in Congress) around on commitments to wars. Every major conflict the US has gotten into has developed like that.

On the whole, the situation has developed pretty well considering the disaster that was looming on 1 March 2022.

¨The alternative offered by the Republican Party should be leadership that offers victory, not accelerated defeat followed by global rout. ¨

Good luck with that.

elm

the resurrected dixiecrat party is going to do what it is going to do, something presumably insane

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Love the "raw meat" part... Red in tooth and claw, are we Mr. Elm?

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Oct 6, 2023Liked by Claire Berlinski

Ah, a puppet shows up. 'red in tooth and claw' - take that up with your Russian pal. He wanted to play ball. He wanted to outdo GW Bush (and he has in terms of the size of the blunder!). Now he's killed massive numbers of his soldiers and not much to show for. I mean, maybe some framed pictures of his boy's deliberate mass murders of civilians. If that's the sort of thing that warms his heart. Maybe it warms yours, I dunno.

elm

your boy is goin' down in not that long, maybe wallow is some bs righteousness while you can

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The “massive numbers of his soldiers” might be overplaying it. We don’t know exact figures, but out best guess is like something under 100,000 dead and between 200,000-300,000 wounded. That is already more than ten times our casualties in the 20-year war on terror, but Russia has gained several million people between the occupied territories and the refugees who fled there. If the war ends with the status quo I would consider it a limited win for Russia- not the strategic game-changer Putin was hoping for, but an incremental improvement and confirmation that as long as they persist they will eventually win.

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Oct 6, 2023·edited Oct 6, 2023

Puh-leeeze! A little thin-skinned, ehhh, Mister Elm? Putin's my pal? Or is it that I'm his boy-toy/puppet? Maybe if you'd paid more attention to what the post-Obamazoidal military brass is and does, you'd be way slower to celebrate Biden's subservience to it?

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I don't know if Republicans are venal or stupid, but either way, they are empowering Putin.

The question is important.

If Republicans are stupid, they can be educated and convinced.

And we have to make the effort to do both.

If they are venal, then the only answer is to remove them from power.

Politicians tell us that every election is "the most important election ever".

I won't go so far, but 2024 is going to affect our lives for many years to come.

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Oct 5, 2023·edited Oct 6, 2023Liked by Claire Berlinski

Some are stupid, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and Bob Good. Folks like Matt Gaetz, Chip Roy, and Ben Cline know better and are merely pandering to the former and their wingnut base.

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